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Jan Jacob Slauerhoff was born on September 15, 1898, fifth in a family of six children, and raised in a moderately orthodox- protestant middle class environment in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. He suffered from bouts of asthma, especially in his childhood years; to alleviate his condition, Jan stayed on the island of Vlieland a couple of times during the summer months with relatives of his mother's.
Slauerhoff attended HBS ( secondary school) in HarlingenHarlingen is: A city in the Netherlands A city in Texas, United States.; in 19161916 is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar) Events January 1 -The first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled. Impressionist Monet paints Water Lilies'. January 8 Allied forces withdraw from, he moved to AmsterdamMunicipality of Amsterdam St Andrew's crosses are taken to represent these (though the crosses are even older than the motto). A popular tradition links the X's to the three threats to the city: Water, Fire and Pestilence. Alternate meanings: See Amsterda to read medicineSee drugs, medication, and pharmacology for substances that treat patients. This article is about medical practice. Medicine is a branch of health science concerned with restoring and maintaining health and wellness. Broadly, it is the practical science o. While at universityA university is an institution of higher education and of research, which grants academic degrees. A university provides both tertiary and quaternary education. University is derived from the Latin universitas meaning corporation since the first medieval, he wrote his first poems, some of which were published in the Amsterdam studentAlternate uses: Student (disambiguation Etymologically derived from study a student is one who studies. Also known as a disciple in the sense of a religious area of study, and/or in the sense of a "discipline" of learning. In widest use, student is used t magazineThis article is about the magazine as a published medium. For other meanings, see magazine (disambiguation A magazine is a periodical publication containing a variety of articles on various subjects. some magazines Magazines are typically published weekly Propria cures ("Mind Your Own Business"). In 1919, Slauerhoff became engaged with a Dutch language student, Truus de Ruyter. He took no active part in conventional student life, preferring to take a more aloof and bohémien stance modelled on his French symbolist poet heroes Baudelaire, Verlaine, Corbière and Rimbaud.
Starting in 1921, Slauerhoff published his first 'serious' poems in the literary magazine Het Getij ("The Tide"). His first collection of verse, Archipel ("Archipelago") was published in 1923, by which time he had broken off his engagement to De Ruyter.
That same year 1923, Slauerhoff graduated from university. Having made few friends and quite a number of enemies while at university, he found it hard to get a proper medical position in the Netherlands and so decided to sign up as a ship's surgeon for a Dutch East Indies shipping company. His weak constitution immediately started to trouble him. On his first voyage, he suffered from a stomach bleeding and asthmatic fits. Slauerhoff returned to the Netherlands and deputised for a while in a number of doctor's practices.
After co-running a practice for a few months with a dentist in Haarlem, he signed up with another shipping company, the Java-China-Japan Lijn, and sailed for the Far East again. Until the end of his contract, in 1927, he made many voyages to China, Hong Kong, and Japan.
In 1928, Slauerhoff switched to the Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd and made a number of voyages to Latin America. His health improved somewhat and his literary production increased to match: up to 1930, six collections of verse and two short story collections were published. Literary critic and friend of Slauerhoff, Eddy du Perron , is to be thanked for this steady production of publications. During 1929, when Slauerhoff stayed at the Du Perron Belgian family mansion for some months, Du Perron helped him to sort, correct, and edit many of his poems and stories.
From 1929 on, Slauerhoff stayed in the Netherlands more frequently. He was an assistant in the Utrecht University clinic for Dermatology and Venereal Diseases from 1929–1930. In September 1930, he married dancer and ballet teacher Darja Collin , the start of a short happy period in his life. By 1931, however, Slauerhoff had fallen ill again ( influenza and pneumonia) and left for the Italian health resort Merano to recuperate. His wife followed him in 1932, in order to experience the birth of their first child together. The child, however, was stillborn, prompting a serious depression in Slauerhoff, yet another disillusion on top of his physical ailments.
Later in 1932, Slauerhoff went to sea again, signing up with the Holland-West-Afrikalijn. His general bad health continued to worry him, however, and he considered moving to Northern Africa, as this would benefit his health. In March of 1934, he set up a doctor's practice in Tangier (then an international protectorate), but by October he had left again. His periods of illness grew longer, the symptoms grew more serious, and his relationship with Darja deteriorated.
His fame as a writer, meanwhile, spread. His novels Het verboden rijk ("The Forbidden Empire", 1932) and Het leven op aarde ("Life on Earth", 1934) were widely praised and his 1933 verse collection Soleares was awarded the Van der Hoogt Prize.
The year 1935 saw yet more sea voyages, but also his divorce from Darja Collin. During his last voyage, to South Africa, he fell severly ill with malaria on top of neglected tuberculosis and returned to Merano for yet more recuperation.
But by this time, it was too late. Still ill, he returned to the Netherlands in 1936 to take up residence in a nursing home in Hilversum, where he died on October 5, just after his 38th birthday and one month after the publication of his last collection of verse, Een eerlijk zeemansgraf ("An Honourable Seaman's Grave").